Sasha Plays

Sasha is the newest addition to our dog family. She's a wirehaired dachshund. We adopted her from a shelter in December. I found her on Petfinder.com, and Mr Wonderful and I drove about 2 hours to get her that same day. There was something about her that just called out to me, and the shelter she was in was awful....a very high-kill shelter, no vet on staff, no real requirements or even questions to adopt. Just fork over the money (I think it was a whopping $60 bucks), and you have a new pet.
The shelter thought she was very old. They were purely guessing, and basing it on her gray hair. (I guess by that logic, all schnauzers are old.) They had picked her up as a stray, and she looked like she may have recently had puppies. They said she was probably sick, and if so I could bring her back for a refund.
Um, no thanks.
When we took her to our vet, we discovered that she was only a year or two old. She was actually still producing milk, and at first they thought she was pregnant, but thankfully she wasn't. She's healthy and in great shape.
I was a little surprised that she was that young, because she's a very mellow dog. The only thing she really gets excited about is food, and 'loves'. Anytime Mr Wonderful or I sit down, she hops on our lap and tries to give our face a bath. Otherwise, she follows me around loyally and just sleeps. She never plays with the other dogs, or shows any interest in toys.
Until the other night.
I found a stuffed, squeaky hedgehog toy that one of the dogs had brought to bed, so I'd taken it away from them and hid it in a drawer. I pulled it out and tossed it to the dogs, and shortly after, I heard it very quietly and slowly squeaking.
When the other dogs have a toy, it's always SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK!!! But this time, it was squeak......squeak....squeak. I looked down, and it was Sasha! Her first time ever playing with a toy, and she played with that thing for hours. squeak.....squeak....squeak. She eventually fell asleep with this hedgehog.
I finally realized that she probably never played with our toys, not due to a lack of interest, but because she didn't know how. She'd probably never even seen a toy before, so she didn't know what to do with them. I strongly suspect she was from a puppy mill, and this confirms it even more.
I'm just so glad that her life is better now, full of love, care, plenty of food....and toys to play with.